Freshbreeze on Vijay Times

Date: Nov 30, 2006

Dear Divs,
We carried your latest blog post today.
Please see page 13 of Vijay Times.
Cheers, Subhash

Wow!! Nothing but just a plain 'Wow'!!
That was my first reaction when I found these words waiting for me in my mailbox. So far I used to enjoy the position of playing the surprise guy but this time they really beat me to dust. And man, what a pleasure to see this post up there on Vijay Times, One of the best and most versatile newspaper in Karnataka. It was not less than an honor for a person like me who's quite new to the world of blogging. My sincere thanks to Subhash (The Deputy Editor) and his team. Here's a little story especially dedicated to them.

Its so wonderful how broken links slowly join together to make a chain of memories. It traces back to my college days back in 2001-02 when I was an engineering student in Belgaum, Karnataka. One sunny morning while I was mentally preparing myself to sustain another scolding by professor for being late to class, someone faintly knocked at my door. Still in my Towel, I hesitantly opened the door to find a man with a pile of newspaper in his hand. With a charming smile, he said "Sir, We have started a new newspaper 'Vijay Times' and here's a free complementary copy of the same. Hope you'll like it. Call me at this number to subscribe it (pointing towards the blue stamp on it)". For college students, anything that sounds 'free' is quite dear to heart, so I thanked him and quickly grabbed it. As I can recall clearly, later in the day when I went past a few pages, I realised even though the daily was quite new but the length and breadth of topics it covered was really praiseworthy. Quite impressed, I followed it later intermittently in college library whenever used to find it there.

A month later, I took VRL (Vijayananda travels) bus to some destination and was surprised again to find VRL guys distributing free copies of Vijay Times to its passengers. 'Ahaa we met again', I said as I enjoyed my familiar versatile paper back in my hands. Two years later, I moved to down Bangalore for Job hunt. Short on time, I switched to online mediums like Google News, NDTV and all, rarely getting time to go past the headlines.

2006 Journey: Come October and I started on with freshbreeze. Come November and my long gone friend is back with me again on page 13. Come December and its my time to share my happiness with it as freshbreeze hitcount crossed past the 1000 mark. Yes, Thanks to my dear readers, freshbreeze is now on a new milestone.

While I was trying to collect more information on VijayTimes, apart from its huge success story in Karnataka, I came to know about its two other popular daily viz. Vijay Karnataka (Kannada) and Usha Kiran (Kannada) apart from the news of acquisition of Vijayananda Printers by Times Group in mid 2006. According to Subhash, "The 4-year-history of Vijay Times has been a roller-coaster ride. After initial hiccups, it picked up circulation all over Karnataka, thanks to the dynamic transport group which launched it, Vijayanand Roadways, led by Vijay Sankeshwar (that's where the Vijay comes from). And the Times takeover has been a smooth transition, so far. Recently we crossed the one lakh mark in city."

So here's wishing Vijay Times success and circulation, in Karnataka and beyond. They have started a new column titled "Bloggers Park" in which they publish interesting posts by various bloggers around. So if u have a blog and wanna share it, you know where to head for.

PS:

To visit that column online, follow these steps:
1) Visit http://vijaytimesepaper.com/
2) Click on 'Free epaper access' tab.
3) Click on 'Listings' link on left pane.
4) The column will be there on page 13 (on right side).

To access my published post:
Select date as Nov 30, 2006 (top right side box) and browse to page 13 as directed above.